1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pickup driving mechanism for reproducing and/or recording information recorded on a disc and a recording medium drive having the same.
2. Description of Related Art
Conventionally, there has been know a pickup drive mechanism for moving a pickup device along a recording surface of CD and DVD, the pickup device recording information recorded on an optical recording medium such as CD and DVD or reproducing the recorded information (see for instance, Reference 1: Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. Hei 9-139030, page 3 to 4, FIGS. 1 and 2).
The pickup drive mechanism disclosed in the Reference 1 includes: a drive gear driven to rotate by an electric motor; a pickup supporter with a pickup fixed thereto, a radial movement of which is guided by two guide shafts in parallel to each other; a driver attached to the pickup supporter and provided with a rack gear that meshes with the drive gear; and a plate spring attached to the pickup supporter and adapted to bias the substantially entire length of the rack gear in a direction meshing with the drive gear. In such arrangement, there is known an arrangement capable of adjusting heights of the guide shafts to fine adjust a gap between the pickup and a recording surface of a disc.
In the pickup drive mechanism disclosed in Reference 1, an abutting surface (abutting on the drive gear) of the driver attached to the pickup supporter is formed in parallel to a focus position being substantially vertical to the recording surface of the disc. However, in such arrangement, when the heights of the guide shafts are adjusted to adjust the gap size between the pickup and the recording surface of the disc, difference is generated in heights between one of the guide shafts and the other. Thus, the pickup supporter rotates around the guide shafts to change the posture. Accordingly, the abutting surface of the driver rotates so as to move away from and toward the driving gear. Thus, when the abutting surface is tilted in a direction away from the drive gear, it becomes difficult for the abutting surface to receive driving force of the drive gear, which might affect drive of the pickup supporter. On the other hand, when the abutting surface of the pickup supporter is tilted toward the drive gear, the abutting surface strongly presses the drive gear, which affects rotation of the drive gear. Therefore, tilt angle between the abutting surface of the driver and a gear surface of the drive gear have to be taken into account in adjusting the guide shafts, so that operations become troublesome and production cost increases.